Bankruptcy might be the way to go . . .

[Leper]

RTE Radio 1 covered a bankrupt couple in their bulletin at 6.25am. Being a bit groggy I think I heard the following (from todays Financial Times):-

Couple bought a house in Ireland and quickly found themselves in negative equity. They couldnt sell the house because at best they would get only half the amount of the mortgage.

They moved to Wales and declared themselves bankrupt. Their house was repossessed by the bank. The couple find themselves unable to open a bank account, but can live with this. Apparantly, if they did the same in Ireland it would take years to get themselves declared bankrupt.

If anybody can supply a link, I would be grateful. Furthermore, if I posted any untruth above please feel free to correct me.

 

[Niallman]

Typo corrected? Try again!

 

[Wishes]

Hi Leper, that is a new one re opening a bank account. Will they ever be able to open an account?

 

[Leper]

I dont know when they can open a bank account. It was just reported that the couple were prevented from opening a bank account following their pridicament. But, it was also reported that the couple 'could live with that.' From what I heard the couple could not live with their dreadful negative equity and their well-being was suffering because of rising debts.

They found a loophole to get their house repossessed and they were declared bankrupt with no debts.

 

[RMCF]

So they bought the house to make a killing on it and it backfired on them (after all negative equity only matters to you if you are selling).

Any other 'investment' can backfire on you, just like property. People seem to want different rules for this though to, say, buying shares, or gold, or art.